This week in class we focused on the stories relating to two women convicted of witchcraft. One of these stories focused on the Goodwin children who appeared to be tortured by demonic forces. The Goodwin children had strange things occur to them including: their heads being nailed to the floor, coughing up a ball, riding a phantom horse, and even attempts to pull out their bowels. These events were not only downright weird, but they were also extremely specific. We spent some time in class discussing their behavior and how if it was not the result of witchcraft, what else it could have been caused by. Other reasons for the children’s behavior that we came up with included child abuse, mental illness, psychoactive plant or bacteria consumption, and that the behavior was made up by the parents and Reverand.
I wanted to do some more research on this story to see what reasons besides witchcraft could be found regarding the Goodwin children’s behavior. One paper written about the medical and psychological explanations of Salem stated that the children’s behavior could have stemmed from fear of death, hysteria, or a disease. The children’s fear of death could have caused their behavior, because at this time they believed that they would face eternal damnation. Fear of damnation and being told by many adults they were being tortured by demonic forces, would have been enough to instill hysteria in the children that would cause them to act as if they actually were being tortured. Hysteria also occurred from their fear of a demon attempting to kill them, which as extremely religious children would be a huge concern. Finally, their behavior could have occurred because of a disease from contaminated bread, otherwise known as ergotism. Bread that was eaten with ergot on it could produce a number of symptoms similar to possession including hallucination, involuntary muscle stimulation, and crawling sensations.
Another article discussing the children involved in the Salem hysteria cited the Goodwin’s behavior as a result of the repression of young women in the Puritan religion. In this religion, females were expected to do chores and not express themselves. Female children had even less room for self-expression, so acting possessed and the resulting attention could have been enticing to the Goodwin children. Acting out was a way of getting back at society for repressing them and a way of lashing out at the older women who had allowed the repression to continue.
These reasons I found online all seem more plausible than witchcraft occurring and our class had guessed less of them than I thought, with the psychoactive plant/bacteria guess being the closest guess to what was found online. I find the psychoactive theory to be the most credible because of the symptoms being so similar to what the Goodwin children experienced. It additionally has proof of existing in Salem during this time period and mainly affecting women and children. I am interested to learn more about other plausible explanations for witchcraft possessions because I find it intriguing that people could have been persecuted all because of a simple misunderstanding such as the “possessed” person being affected with disease or acting out.
Thanks, Alexis, great blog post, and I appreciate your taking the time to research the
ReplyDeleteGoodwin children. There are a multitude of reasons and explanations for the strange behaviors, and in fact there were probably several mixed together. But I think your comments on the fear of death and damnation closest to my on thoughts. Puritans believed that there were extremes salvation and damnation and that people could never know their fate until the moment of Final Judgment. To suppose that you were among the saints was a sin itself, and one sine was representative of all sins. This put enormous strain on people, especially children. I think the Goodwin children--and at least at first--the Salem girls--were terrified to such an extent that they came to believe they were tormented by devils. And what you believe becomes real.